What Happens Now: the Effect of Executive Orders on Students

Since January 20th, 2025, there has been a record number of decisions made by President Trump. One of these was the removal of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs which support people in marginalized groups and the removal of ’X’ as a legally recognized sex, legally setting it as only ‘M’ and ‘F’. People, including students, are very scared about how this might affect them moving forward.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen in both the immediate and far future so everything feels really scary and uncertain,” Silver Creek High School Junior Willow Cahill said.

It is going to be especially hard for transgender individuals who might lose access to and gender-affirming care like hormones and surgery which are necessary to help deal with gender dysphoria.

2.3 million Americans identify as transgender but only 1-2% of people who medically transition regret having done so. Compared to the other 98% this number is very minimal. 42% of people who are transgender say they have attempted suicide at some point compared to the 4.6% seen in cisgender individuals.

Teenagers are already more at risk for impulsive suicide because of their underdeveloped frontal lobes and less life experience. Taking away the possibility of having treatment to help someone feel like themselves is only going to increase these rates.

For many transgender youth, the option to have easy access to gender-affirming care is one of the factors that keeps them going, and can help get them to a point where they are comfortable in their own skin.

“I think it’s going to have a really bad long-term effect on all of our mental health and could even lead to a higher rate of suicide within the LGBTQ community, which already has one of the highest rates of any minority group,” Cahill said.

The 119th Congress passed a bill “to amend the Education Amendments of 1972 to provide that for purposes of determining compliance with title IX of such Act in athletics, sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth,” on January 15, 2025. This was then followed by an executive order banning the participation of individuals in all levels of sports if their chromosomes do not match their gender.

However, the National Health Institute says they were unable to find sufficient evidence that trans women have any advantage in women's sports. In fact, since 2004 when trans people were allowed to compete in Olympic sports only one person has won a gold medal.

This bill affects student-athletes as well, even high school students. “I think that it's [laws are] going back to the 1970's where they literally had athletes go into booths” in order to confirm their biological sexSilver Creek High School Gender Sexuality Alliance and math teacher, Vincent Reading said.

The Silver Creek High School Athletics Director Patrick DeCamillis comments about what Silver Creek is currently doing in regards to this federal legislation.

“At this point, we're following [Colorado] state law,” said DeCamillis. “…a student is allowed in Colorado to participate within the sport in which they identify.”

Currently, it is the job of the teachers to be conscious of what they say that can be construed as politically charged in terms of their own beliefs around identity to still be able to protect students.

This doesn’t mean teachers cannot be supportive of students, this means that they should do what they can to not draw attention to their supportiveness

“We need to make sure that we are doing our job and we're not leaving ourselves open to people coming in and saying that you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing,” DeCamillis stated. “And I simply am doing what I am supposed to be doing by protecting children.”